Archive for September, 2010

If you’ve read any of my earlier blog posts you’ll know that I play golf. I realize that not everyone shares my enthusiasm for the game so you will find absolutely no discussion of the technicalities of golf in the following paragraphs.

In fact, if you want, you can substitute any game you personally prefer and still get the benefit of the points I’m going to make.

At the beginning of the summer I decided that my golf really had to improve. As a result, I took some lessons from someone with the experience to help me improve my swing. He turned out to be a terrific teacher who not only helped me improve my practical skills but also gave me confidence in my ability to become a “decent” golfer.

At one point, when we were discussing my goals, he said to me “You can achieve any score you decide to.” These were words of great encouragement for me. When I thought about it later I realized that he was pointing out two things:
• I alone had control over how much of my potential I realized.
• My attitude would play a large part in determining how good I actually became.
Adrian also told me that I had to practice hard, 2 or 3 times every week.

I’m sure you can see where this is going.

After taking stock of my personal strengths and weaknesses as a golfer, he gave me the opportunity to develop a better swing by avoiding the threats of a bad grip, bad posture etc. (OK so I lied a little bit about golf technicalities.) This was the golfing equivalent of a business owner developing a strategy for growing her/his company.

But actually making an improvement in my game would depend on how well I executed that strategy – the consistency of each swing at the ball (a process); how often I practiced (implemented the action plan) and how I adapted to what happened on the course each time I played (regular reviews using feedback from actual results). Also similar to the things a business owner has to do when he/she is growing a business!

I don’t want to draw this metaphor out for too long so let me tell you what happened. For a number of weeks I practiced regularly, improved my swing and learned my lessons when things didn’t work out during a game. My scores steadily got better.

Then, just as happens so often in business, things began to get in the way. I had to go to the UK, then we had house guests arrive. Work was being crammed into early morning and late night sessions.

I stopped practicing regularly (lost focus on my action plan) because I “had” to deal with these other things. My performance on the course (that great golf marketplace) and my scores began to slide again. I did wake up before I’d fallen too far behind (that razor sharp analytical mind at work). And I have improved, but not to the extent that I might have done, could have done, should have done.

I fell into the classic trap that we face as business owners – the day-to-day, tactical stuff took more of my attention than the strategic stuff.

So, the lesson I’ve learned this summer is that I have the potential to achieve a “decent” score in golf. I was certainly able to develop a better strategy (swing) than I’ve ever had before. But my attitude to execution meant I didn’t get to reap the full benefit of my strategy.

Last year we helped a company called School’s Cool www.schoolscool.com with their growth strategy, including pitching to investors. In the interests of full disclosure we were paid for our work, but ProfitPATH doesn’t normally work with early stage companies.

We made an exception in this case for 2 reasons. The results delivered by their product are outstanding and they have been independently verified over a number of years. Secondly, the team – led by the exceptional woman founder – is driven by their desire to help people who do not have the advantages most of us do.

The School’s Cool program runs over 6 weeks and accelerates the developmental skills of children by up to 1 year in that period! It levels the playing field for children who would otherwise enter kindergarten unready, and thus have less chance of starting their education successfully.

We believe that School’s Cool, which is based in Haliburton, Ontario, could be the next Canadian success story. So did Flaghouse, a major distributor in the educational space, and their visionary, Canadian-based, lady executive, who signed School’s Cool to an exclusive deal.

And did we mention that over 50% of profits go directly back into charitable activities? (All of this means they’re covered by the guidelines for ProfitPATH’s social awareness policy, which is why we’re blogging about them.)

Now School’s Cool has been entered in a world-wide contest for social enterprises that a) have an idea that could change the world and b) are prepared to “give back.” The contest is called “The Best Brilliant Ideas for Humanity.”

Here’s where you can help.

Go to http://www.bestideaforhumanity.com/profile.cfm?eid=148 and register so the organizers can validate your email address. They will send you an email with a link to go and vote for School’s Cool. Then tell your friends about this great Canadian company and post a message on your blog or Facebook page.

We’ve just finished the business planning session for our fiscal year which started 1 Jul 10, using the same tools and processes we use with our clients. But it’s so much easier when you’re telling someone else what to do.

The first thing was that we were late getting started. So we immediately broke one of our own cardinal rules – get next year’s plan in place before the end of the current fiscal year. This is something we preach relentlessly to the business owners we work with.

We had done all of the regular quarterly reviews of last year’s plan giving us, under some circumstances, a pretty good starting point for this year. For about a nano second I was tempted just to roll things forward.

But last year was our best year ever and the business had grown in some interesting new directions. Also, we hadn’t taken a look at our 5 year goals during the quarterly reviews. Rather than break another rule, we decided to do a full analysis and went through the lot – target market; competitive evaluation; product and service offering; pricing strategy etc.

So we set some dates on which we’d work through the steps – and then proceeded to change them, pushing them out. Well, I heard myself say, we can’t let day-to-day operations slip, there’s client work to be done; we can’t miss those deadlines. And a little voice asked “Hmmm, where have you heard that before?”

While we were figuring out where we had to be in 3 years’ time that voice in my head was back. At first I couldn’t believe it – that can’t be me. But it was – I’d slipped from consultant into business owner mode. I had to have a stern talk to myself – “Come on Jim, be realistic, where’s your objectivity?”

Going through the gap analysis and figuring out what had to be done was relatively easy. But when we got to prioritization and looking at the investments we had to make I actually broke into a cold sweat at one point.

Then I thought – I’ve done this dozens of times, what’s the problem; this isn’t nearly as difficult when we do it for other companies! The answer was really simple – it was my baby (I mean company); it was my future (I mean retirement plan); it was my money we were risking (for those nasty investments).

To make a long story short, we finished the planning process and identified 5 strategic initiatives I am convinced will take us to the next level. The action plans are in place and being worked on even as I write this. We made some minor adjustments but we confirmed again, from our own experience, that the process we use with other companies works.

And I promise to be more understanding with other business owners in the future!